Tornike Stories

Archimandrate Tornike Stories
June 2006

Tornike is a 92 year old monk, who lives virtually alone in the Motsameta Monastery in western Georgia. He is full of stories and when we visited on the Luarsab-John Monastery Tour 2006, he came to greet us and told us these jewels:



Tornike Stories…. as told to members of the Monastery Tour, June 2006


************
Getting eaten (or almost) by Wolves

When I was a young man, I would travel around to the most remote monasteries on foot, tramping through the woods. I would live there for a time, and clean them out, make them habitable for prayer. You know, in those days, the shepherds would keep their flocks in the churches, and no one looked after the place, so they became very dirty.

One winter afternoon, as it was getting dark, I was walking through the woods near a church, and I began to hear the calling of wolves all around me. I walked a ways, but soon I realized they were getting closer. I couldn’t see them, but I decided to climb into a tree. Before I did though, I wrote a letter telling anyone who might find it, to please check on me, in the church ahead, and if I wasn’t there, to search for my remains as I had been attacked by wolves. Then I climbed to a high branch, and tied myself there with my belt.

All night long, huge mountain wolves, with bared fangs, leaped and howled at me, clawing at the tree trunk and slobbering their hunger and malice into the most agonizing baying. Their noise alone nearly killed me. It was bitterly cold, and I stayed in the tree trunk the whole night.

The next day, I climbed weakly down from my perch onto the trampled and matted snow, wolf tracks now clearly visible in the mud, and stumbled feverishly to the church. As I lay there, weak and sick, I suddenly heard the sound of approaching horsemen. They stormed up, asking, are you Tornike!? ‘Yes, I am’ I responded. They had read my distress letter, and come to find me!


***********
The case of the Russian general and how I came to be exiled in Siberia for life:

It became a custom in Communist times for the people to return to their churches not for services or prayer, but for parties and picnics in the church yards. I tolerated this nuisance, for the people sometimes secretly wanted my blessings, and came into the church to pray.

Once when I was living in Zedazani monastery, a Russian official, a general or someone high in the government, was partying with his friends. He insisted I join them, so I sat at their campfire and we told stories. The Russian was quite drunk, and repeatedly kept insulting our sainted King Tamar, greatest of Georgian leaders. He bated me, saying, come monk, isn’t it true that your Tamar was the same as our Catherine, sleeping with any man, then cutting their heads off in the same night?!

I lost my cool, and standing, told him King Tamar was a saint to me, that I said prayers for her every day, and it was an insult what he had said. Take it back, I demanded. He said it again, even worse.

I pushed him then, and he tumbled backwards. Unfortunately the fire was right there, and he fell in and burned his face. I felt bad for that later, because I had not intended to injure him.

In a few days time, the police came to get me. I was held for several days, then sentenced to death. Later they reduced it to life in prison because I had some friends here and there, people that knew me from Zedazani monastery. They sent me to Siberia. (1950s)


*********
How I survived cancer and escaped from Siberia

I lived in Siberia nine years, but it was such a harsh life, I fell very ill. I was like a skeleton, barely living. The doctors said I had stomach cancer and would not live much longer. I begged a doctor to write me a letter, and taking it to the authorities of the prisoncamp, I said, please let me go to die in my homeland.

They let me go, because I didn’t look like I would even survive one more week.

In a dream, a shining woman appeared to me, and told me to eat certain herbs. I had studied medicine as a young man, so I knew which herbs she was talking about. The next day, I found these herbs, and began to eat them. Before long I was completely healed.

I returned to Georgia, and became a monk again.


*********
How I went to America as a girl’s field-hockey coach

I had some relatives in San Francisco, who were always begging me to come visit. Of course this was nearly impossible for me, or for anyone at that time, but nevertheless they would invite me.

I developed a great wish to go there, and once I was telling some fine young men about this desire I had –at that time I didn’t know that they were involved in the mafia, and one good looking young man said, father, I will send you to America!

To get a visa was very difficult. But a girl’s field hockey team was going from Georgia to San Francisco for a tournament. They put me on the list of people who were absolutely essential to the team, and when they questioned me in the United States embassy, I said, ‘my monastery looks down on their playing field. I used to pray for them, and over time, they got to know me, and I would pray before all their games. Now, they must have me at every game to pray for them, and feel themselves strong in a distant world.’

So I went to San Francisco and surprised all my relatives.


**********
How I went to Paris to collect my uncle’s body

My uncle fled from Georgia before the Bolshevik revolution, and lived out the rest of his days in France. His lifelong wish was to be buried back in Georgia, but since he had died, no one had been able to act on his wish.

I became obsessed with the idea of doing this act for my uncle, and for my family, but I had no money to travel back and forth to France. Once, when I was describing my desire to travel to France with some colleagues, I was totally surprised when one young man volunteered to finance my trip. I didn’t know at the time that he was part of the mafia, or I would not have accepted the money, but anyway, I had my chance to go to France.

Somehow, I was granted a visa –this was in the 1970s – and I traveled to France. It took me a long time to find my Uncle’s graveyard, the place where he was buried. I asked everyone, but no one seemed to remember. I was talking to people on the street, people in stores, I even went to the mayor of the town, and other city council people. By the time I found the body, I was famous. And there was a ceremony for my Uncle when we dug up his coffin. You know, the mayor was so taken with me coming, that he made the paperwork easy, and he even paid for the body to be returned to Georgia.